Residents stand together to protect their suburbs from looting

Sandton Police Station Commander Brigadier Egen Moodley thanks community members for the role they played in supporting police as eyes and ears on the ground during the week of unrest in the country.

Moodley said that the policing area covered by Sandton SAPS was unaffected by looting, however, neighbouring stations, including Alex received support and assistance from the Sandton Police Station.

Moodley thanked local residents associations, councillors, Metro police, security companies, the CPF, Sandton guardians and other members of the Sandton Security Forum for their efforts in assisting police.

“Visibility and information exchange between police and community members prevented violence from spilling to our area, with normal community members assisting through observations and patrols,” said Moodley.

He said that from July 13, 70 SAPS personnel have been monitoring the policing area day and night. This will continue until the end of the month.

“There is no indication that there will be further problems, and we urge residents to remain calm, report any looting, gatherings or protests in the area. There is no need to flock to garages for petrol and to shops for groceries.

“Be assured that we are on high alert and will have a quick response, should anything happen.”

Deployments have been made to malls, shopping centres and intersections in the area to keep eyes and ears on the ground.

PRO for the Sandton CPF Roshan Byjnal said that many shopping centres and stores in Sandton and surrounds were closed during the week of unrest as a precautionary measure.

“Most of the looting took place in the neighbouring Alexandra township, Wynberg and Bramley,” said Byjnal.

He explained that the CPF helped to increase patrols along certain corridors in order to identify possible incidents and notify law enforcement accordingly.

Byjnal said residents came together to protect the suburbs, especially those areas bordering the known looting hotspots including Marlboro, Kelvin and Buccleuch.

When the looting subsided, many residents joined clean-up efforts around Wynberg and Alex while others prepared meals, which were distributed to those in need and collected food and clothing.

“As evident during the last week, the community has far greater impact when it comes together to help and protect each other. We’ve met and worked with people we’ve never met before and it has been great.

“We should not let this effort die off once things settle down.”

He encouraged locals to get involved in the different programmes in Sandton, not only from a CPF perspective, but any community-based initiatives.

He also cautioned residents against sharing unverified information on social media.

“Misinformation is currently a big concern now that we have convenient messaging tools such as WhatsApp and Telegram, and social media apps. If we take responsibility for the information we share, we will help manage much of the panic being spread due to unverified messages,” concluded Byjnal.

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